[1263] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Three more cents... plus clarification about the UA/US
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher Beland)
Wed Mar 20 06:28:04 2002
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Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 03:24:56 -0800
From: Christopher Beland <beland@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
More Bush Fund vote-buying spoo...
If this were a legitimate and useful tactic, in the long run, most
candidates might very well adopt it. This would give people an
incentive to treat the election as a horse race - to put their vote on
the person most likely to come through with the most votes, so as to
be rewarded in the end. People would be less likely to vote for
underdogs, no matter what their platform (whether that be policy or
mere financial reward), because it becomes (slightly?) less important
what they are offering, and (slightly?) more important whether or not
they will win.
Of course, this is a concern with the standard polling technique of
being able to vote for only one candidate at a time. If you aren't
confident that your candidate will win, then either 1.) you are more
likely to vote for someone more watered-down but better than a bad
candidate who you would be really unhappy to see win, or 2.) by
sticking to your guns, you will risk having a less desirable candidate
win. That was the dilemma Nader supporters faced in the 2000
presidential race, and that is also why third-party advocates (and
other people who care about such things) advocate alternative systems
that avoid this tradeoff, like Instant Runoff Voting (adopted this
year by the City and County of San Francisco, for example).
In any case, even if you are looking to get the most financial return
out of the political process, it's unclear to me that you're not
better off if vote-buying is banned. Better to be sure of a getting a
benefit than possibly having all the rewards go off to some other
group, right?
> There is no enforcement, and people who don't vote and send e-mails
> would still get the money.
It is true that the secret ballot largely protects against this sort
of abuse. But that doesn't mean that attempting to abuse the system
in this way is OK and has no harmful effects -- it's just a matter of
degree. Some fraction of the people involved will, after all, be
honest when claiming their cash. And if people claim but don't vote,
they'll be less likely to actually get it, so there is a partial
effect there.
> "Vote for us! Oh, and by the way, send us your name to this email
> address and we'll give you 10 bucks out of this ridiculous 5000 Bush
> fund that I'm suppossed to spend on myself".
OK, you've got a point there. Though I think that's a rather silly
way to spend the money (why not devote it to student activities? It's
not like there haven't been plenty of UAPs who have not spent the
money on themselves) and also a rather silly way to allocate it, as
long as it's not tied to the voting process, it's not bribery (except
for gullible senior citizens who get confused and think that voting
for Rhett increases their chances of getting the $10). But hey, you
have to draw the line *somewhere.*
> At events where food is offered, only those who show up first get
> the food. Not everyone is entitled to the food, nor does anyone
> believe that everyone should be.
Dude, hungry people get *pissed off* when food runs out before they
get there! I think they'd be even more upset if there were some sort
of lottery held at the event to determine which subgroup of people got
to eat.
> The UA and its officers have a limited amount of time and money to
> spend, and try to spend them fairly. But "fair" means different
> things to different people. You think fair should mean equitable,
> in the interest of student activities, trying to make sure the
> mandatory dining plan includes free mints, etc. We -- the people
> who think the UA is complacent and spineless -- think your idea of
> fairness isn't worth a damn because our views are ignored or, at
> best, co-opted.
> You believe Rhett's campaign is unfair because it is so explicitly
> democratic. You say the $10 promise is corrupt because it is too
> precisely targeted. Rhett is playing your game without any
> pretenses, and that's why you say he is *obviously* corrupt, and
> there *clearly* should be a rule for this unexpected case, but you
> can't defend your arguments further than that.
Well, even though Mr. Rezek might not do so, it is certainly possible
to support the platform of this candidate without supporting the
vote-buying tactic. Unless you are a win-at-all-costs type of person,
like Scott is here accusing him of being (which one might ironically
interpret as a win-at-all-costs sort of smear tactic).
But Scott puts more substantial issues on the table, like the question
of whether precise targeting of public resources can be "democratic"?
In general, it certainly can be, as Alex pointed out. All elections
involve resource allocations that benefit targeted groups in certain
ways...think student activities, athletic department, etc.
Clearly, buying of votes with private money is *not* democratic; it
replaces "one person, one vote" with "X dollars, one vote." But this
campaign is an instance of buying votes with public money; where does
it lie on the spectrum between legitimate use of public funds and
corrupting influence?
Democratic elections should allow people to elect candidates and enact
policies which best serve their own interests, or that of the public
in general. It's difficult enough as it is to get people to make
those choices in a meaningful and intelligent way. But to add an
overlapping consideration - switching sides to try to be on the
winning side, so as to get the reward - makes people more likely to
make bad political choices.
Imagine the ASA floats a proposal to burn a given number of $1 bills
in a new fireplace in W20, to improve the ambiance. In a straight
election, it would never pass. But what if it included a provision
that student groups that don't vote for the measure will be
de-recognized in order to free up funding for the project? Those
groups that do vote for it will also get a $500 increase in funding.
So, what will it be? Toastier offices and increased funding, or
de-recognition?
Well, at this hour, all this jostling of special interests and
allegations of publicly funded bribery seems like nothing more than a
lot of ugly shades of grey. Honestly, I would really have to
attribute whatever appeal the campaign had more to its sheer
outrageousness and factors other than the purely monetary incentive of
the $10 bribe.
Beland
Who just worked the California primary and who wishes voters of all
stripes would educate themselves a bit more about who and what are on
the ballot
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